


The One In Which Logan is Not Arrested for Murder

by Sllohce_edie



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:03:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2150049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sllohce_edie/pseuds/Sllohce_edie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I always forget to say...I own nothing, I'm not that amazing.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Keith

Keith Mars dropped his head into his hands and the phone back into its cradle simultaneously. Letting out a shaky breath as he tried to figure out what feeling he was going to deal with first. Surprise, worry, fear, consternation and dread all warred within him 

Surprise. He decided. Surprise was the easiest. His years as a private investigator and sheriff had left him pretty jaded. In Keith’s own mind he was a hard guy to surprise. It didn’t help, he supposed, that it was Logan Echoll’s who had managed it.

He’d seen the young man several times in the nine years since his daughter had fled Neptune for Stanford and, later, Columbia. Keith was fairly certain that the boy had a stack of Veronica’s things and was rationing them. It hadn’t taken Keith long to realize that Logan was trying to extend the number of times he could nonchalantly stop by the Mar’s household. 

The kid reeked of desperation each time, for what, Keith wasn’t entirely sure. A glimpse of Veronica? Perhaps. Though Keith could have told him that wasn’t going to be likely. He missed his daughter as much as anyone. Information about her? Also plausible, he thought, although the boy never asked about her outright. He decided, in the end, that it hadn’t mattered. All Logan wanted was the connection to Veronica. 

Truth be told, Keith hadn’t minded. Crazy about the boy he wasn’t, but he knew, without a doubt, that Logan had been and still was extremely important to his only daughter. Once she was no longer in proximity to the darkness that occasionally overtook Logan, Keith was able to see all the kid’s less disturbing qualities. Sometimes Logan would stay for dinner and friendly conversations and other times it was nothing more than side-glances and stuttered hellos and goodbyes.

Logan had actually come to see him before leaving for basic training, all nervous energy and the insecurities of youth, which Logan still suffered from in spite of all he had experienced in young life. It had hurt Keith to say it but his, “I’m proud of you son,” had been an honest statement. 

None of that had prepared Keith for the phone call that he had just received. Logan Echoll’s, decorated naval pilot, was missing in action. And Keith Mars was his emergency contact.


	2. Piz

Piz

In the month since he had found “That Box,” as Piz called it in his head, it had become harder and harder to keep up appearances. His world had shifted, infinitesimally, but significantly on its axis since he had opened the nondescript cardboard box he had found in the back of Veronica’s closet. His heart beat faster each time he recalled scrambling to pick up its spilled contents, shoving them hastily and haphazardly back into the box as he heard Veronica’s keys in the lock. Piz wasn’t stupid. He knew that Veronica would know the box had been opened the moment she reached for it. For all his awareness, however, he had no clue when that would be.

Each day since then he had seen the pieces of life through a different lens. Nothing had changed really. He and Veronica still stroll Central Park with coffee every Sunday morning. Now, instead of silently laughing about her nervous energy, about how she can never hold his hand for more than a few minutes, he notices how her eyes linger on the back of certain heads. Always brown hair, always spikey and sun kissed. He can no longer lie to himself about the way her eyes brighten until her mark turns around and she sees it isn’t _him_. They still live together peacefully, cooking, reading, cuddling and watching TV. Instead of reveling in the apparent intimacy of cooking dinner together or curling on the couch watching a movie, Piz notices how often she stares blankly at the stove or TV without being tuned in. Not long, just long enough now that he knows where her mind is wandering. He's wondered several times since that day how he was able to ignore the most "tuned in" person he's ever met being "tuned out" so often.

The nights, though, the nights are the hardest for him. Keeping up appearances he still grabs his guitar on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and serenades her away from her law school books. Keeping up appearances means showing up for their regularly scheduled lovemaking. He notices now, though, how she’s never really lost in the moment. Sure, she enjoys it, but she’s always hyper aware of how close his is to his own satisfaction even though her eyes are never open and she checks out in the end. Somehow he had convinced himself that it was an indication of how much she cared for him, that she wanted him to enjoy himself as much as possible. Somehow, he had convinced himself that she wasn't tuned out. If it bothered him that he had been forced to sleep on the couch the one time he asked her to keep her eyes open, well he wasn’t going to admit that, even to himself.

Piz wasn’t stupid. He knew when he ran into Veronica years after their first go round at Hearst that their relationship would never be fireworks and flamethrowers. He never wanted that. Piz was flowers and the Sunday funnies and it seemed that was what this new Veronica wanted. Since that knowledge suited his end goals, Piz hadn’t bothered to look any deeper. 

He wishes he had never found that box. Never opened it and seen that face smiling up at him from a newspaper clipping, not even three months old, detailing his exploits in the Navy. Because then he could have continued to pretend that Veronica loved him. Now all he could see, all he was aware of, painfully aware of, was the fact that Veronica didn’t even realize she was still in love with Logan Echolls.


	3. Wallace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always forget to say...I own nothing, I'm not that amazing.

Wallace had never really understood Logan Echolls. Never understood the guys apparently driving need to take down those who stood in his in path. He didn’t even understand it when it came to those who hurt Veronica. She had been a big girl for a long time, and usually had a hand in creating the not so pretty situations she faced. It wasn’t that Wallace considered himself a lover and not a fighter; it was just that he preferred to see opportunities for teamwork instead of conflict. It’s what made him successful as a friend, a teacher, and a coach. Wallace had never imagined that it would be one of his best friend’s that brought out the little Logan inside of him.

It took Wallace and Keith three days to get Veronica set up with a flight from New York to Neptune. The minute she stepped through security after getting off the plane from New York Wallace saw red. 

It was nothing obvious, Veronica didn’t look like she had spent the last two weeks stranded on a deserted island or locked in a cellar trying to claw her way out. Not physically. At first glance, if you didn’t know Veronica, you wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint that there was something seriously wrong. Her hair was in a messy pony tail, he blouse buttons were off by one, and the laces on her converse were tucked inside the shoes instead of in the neat little bows Veronica usually tied. Not a completely unreasonable amount of slobbery for someone who had just sat on a plane for 6 hours straight. Not his vibrant and detail oriented BFF either. Up close she looked even worse. The circles under her eyes were bold slashes across her sunken cheeks and her skin felt brittle under his hands as Wallace hugged her.

‘Distant’ was the word Piz had used to describe Veronica since the news broke. The shaking hands that tried and failed to open the water bottle he handed her, the quick shallow breaths that were broken only by the occasional choked sob, and dimness of his best friend’s blue eyes didn’t say ‘distant’ to Wallace…it all added up to something closer to dying. 

Gently he settled Veronica at her dad’s house with Keith and headed home. Once he got there he proceeded to call his ‘good pal’ Piz, punch a half a dozen holes in his bedroom wall and drink a little more scotch than necessary before curling onto his bed and crying the tears his best friend couldn’t.


End file.
